Soundiron Montclarion Hall Grand Piano (1926 Steinway Parlor Grand)

Wholesounds 1954 Baldwin Parlour Grand

After last years string library poll I though it would be interesting to see which are the most popular piano libraries being used out there at the moment. I tried to list all the virtual grand pianos that I could find but I may have missed some. I will have a separate poll coming for uprights and sound design pianos.

NI the maverick, so far so good, but i'm planning to get Bechstein Digital Grand soon.

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I would wait for the outcome of this vote before you buy the Bechstein. I was not impressed with it. It is very clinical. To me the tone isn't good and the mic positions too limited. They make great pianos but I think their sampling leaves something to be desired. There are some great musicians on here that rate it highly though. So, again, it comes down to personal taste.

For me the Imperfect Samples pianos feel very 'alive', but they are definitely imperfect. I'm surprised to see the NI pianos doing so well here. I'll have to dig out my old Komplete and try them.

NI the maverick, so far so good, but i'm planning to get Bechstein Digital Grand soon.

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I do like that one, plus the Gentleman from NI (I'd like to call attention to the Cinematic preset in Giant, though the piano isn't so great imo). GPO Steinway has its uses as well imo.

After I bought Garritan CFX all the other piano libraries were just good for layering...and we all know how often we layer our good piano vsts with the not-anywhere-near-as-good, right? lol!

Anyhoo, if you love piano and you don't have CFX, it is a total steal for the price (I would have paid 500 US, easy, for it). Don't even hesitate, the inspiration level skyrocked for me upon purchase (and I don't even like piano that much).

Have only used EWQL pianos. Actually that was my very first VST ever. Here's a EWQL Bosendorfer track I made 6 years ago -

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Lovely playing, composition and sound!
I use also East West Bösendorfer and Steinway and like the sound but after I bought Embertone Steinway Im not sure I will use other then Embertone.
Anyway, your sound of the Bösendorfer is really rich. Did you use compression, E.Q.?
Is it possible to buy the score for your composition somewhere?

Not that much but for sure up there in the early thousands $. You have to remember that some of them i bought as bundles (Pianoteq Standard, VI Labs Truekeys etc...). Not to mention sales etc... For examples i got the Ravenscroft last year during Black Friday 50% and got VI Labs True keys during the vstbuzz deal that happened not too long ago.

I'm likely to buy VSL Synchron some time soon, too. Guy Bacos's demos had a tone I really liked, very hard to verbalize what I liked about it, some kind of "live presence" in the string harmonics (or maybe early reflections?) that I think would be very hard to achieve just by mixing alone.

Anyway, your sound of the Bösendorfer is really rich. Did you use compression, E.Q.?
Is it possible to buy the score for your composition somewhere?

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Hey, thanks to both of you for listening! I still do make music, but it's a side gig and life is getting increasingly busy. I do have in mind a piano album coming soon after my current music project (you can search online for "clicker heroes 2 soundtrack", which is my current project, still adding more tracks for several months more). Also full disclosure I have to say my performance skills are not that good - I have to splice many takes and do a ton of MIDI corrections every time. I might have been good enough 15 years ago, but not these days...

I did use EQ to deepen the bass and also used convolution reverb on this Bosendorfer. If you're interested I can dig out the project file and give you all the gritty details. And that's a great idea about transcribing it - unfortunately I haven't done that yet. Putting it on the TODO list...

Production Voices Production Grand 2 Platinum is the best sampled piano I've ever laid my hands on. My only complaint is that it's too bright for some applications, but that's due to the type of piano sampled—a Yamaha C7—rather than Production Voices' sampling abilities.

As a result of my high-level of satisfaction, I'm not eager to buy another sampled grand—save for the fact that I will occasionally need one that's less bright. At that point in time, Production Voices' new Concert Grand Platinum will be at the top of my list.